"Black tongues of smoke are rising from your eyes!"
"I feel nothing, though my sight is dim."
"Your father's dead! Look down to where he lies!"
"I cannot look at what I've done to him;
I waded far too deep and cannot swim."
Young Merrasir set down the fox's head
They paid respects, they waited, prayed, and fled
Bright shafts of sun cut through pervading chill
As variegated ferns flew under paw
What little warmth they gave, a drying rill
Was cut now and again by shadow's draw
Was cut by crows more bitter in their caw
Crisp umber leaves streamed from the trees and rushed
To join the fallen others, swiftly crushed
One step was one step just too far, and then
One turn, the plume of smoke was far too tall
A mirror in the eyes, a turn again
To run, to run far farther off from all
Rokhem the only village border-wall
Tall unkempt grass where spirits rose in rain
Now harshly lit, unmoving on the plain
"Your eyes, oh Khazemil, are bright once more—
Look near, a copse to hide us as we sit.
Wade back, draw near to safety on the shore!
My thoughts are on the real and counterfeit,
My early days, and how the lights are lit."
The collie pressed the fox to rest a while
And wondered at his thin, despondent smile
"My whiskers sense the heat from even here,
Oppressive, vanishing before my fur;
Obsidian, not flame, remaining near.
A boon? A life for life, or death demur?
Beside the temple, elders to inter
My father; satisfaction for the mask!
Now Merrasir, speak on; I cannot ask."
The dog recoiled and wavered when he knew
Those words like hooks drew up long-buried thought
"My family left me to come to you,
While war between the temple wards was fought
'Seek grain and safety!' as the dog-mask wrought
An end; you well remember I returned
An end! The very stones were overturned!"
The grove grew close and stifling; they stood
"I wondered at those buzzing globes of light
Your houses, bright, inviting, glinting, good;
The wires run a ways and out of sight
Run underground and there they reunite."
"Then Merrasir, the ancient one has drawn
A sacrifice, he lives, and I his pawn!"
❦